


like a brother, like a lover

by koshiroganes



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Canon Compliant, M/M, Meta Fic, Shiro and Keith are not brothers, enormous season 6 spoilers, unambiguously sheith ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-19
Updated: 2018-06-19
Packaged: 2019-05-25 16:19:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14980901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/koshiroganes/pseuds/koshiroganes
Summary: The thing is, Keith thinks, that he was always alone, before Shiro.An exploration of Shiro and Keith's relationship and the word "brother."





	like a brother, like a lover

The thing is, Keith thinks, that he was always alone, before Shiro.

 

He had his dad, for a while, in their little house in the desert, where Keith entertained himself, invented games he could play alone and imagined other worlds beyond the stars. He went to school, too, but—well. Keith was odd, according to the other kids, a motherless, sand-dwelling thing full of rage he couldn’t contain, alien and untouchable.

 

Like they knew even before he did that something was different about him down to his very DNA.

 

When he was eight, his dad died, and with no other family to speak of he was sent to a group home, where he slept in a room full of boys and was more alone than ever. Just like at school, the other kids kept their distance—and without his dad, he was starved of touch, of conversation, of the things that kept people human.

 

For seven years, Keith curled in on himself until he lashed out, again and again, built a shell around himself, like the armadillos he used to watch scutter through his backyard. He went to school and got in fights and aced all his tests and got points off for not participating, went back to the home and ran around the block as many times as it took to get his energy out before bed. It repeated, and endless cycle, destined to continue for at least the next three years, maybe more—maybe the rest of his life.

 

Then Takashi Shirogane walked into his classroom one day, and everything was different.

 

—

 

Keith is fifteen, and “Takashi Shirogane but call me Shiro” tells the class he’s twenty-one. Keith is trying to pretend he isn’t listening, chin in his hand as he stares out the window, while Shiro talks about simulators and astrophysics and the stars, but the truth is that Keith has always wanted to reach up and dip his fingers into the inky black night sky, and so he does something he hasn’t for anyone else in years: he gives Shiro his full attention.

 

He’s twice Keith’s size in every way, the bulk of him sort of intimidating, but his smile is kind—and while everyone else immediately looks away as soon as they make eye contact with Keith, an instinct he’d do anything to take away, Shiro meets his gaze and _nods_. A small thing, but more acknowledgement than Keith has gotten in a long time.

 

So when Shiro asks them at the end of his speech if anyone is interested in more information, Keith’s hand shoots up.

 

The other kids laugh, of course, and even the teacher looks at him warily like he’s about to pull something. Because even though they know Keith is smart, they also know his record is thick with incidents that will keep any government agency from looking twice at him. He just sets his jaw and keeps his hand in the air.

 

“Hey, great,” Shiro says warmly. “What’s your name?”

 

“Keith.”

 

“You want to stay after class for a few and chat with me, Keith?”

 

“Okay,” Keith says.

 

“Any other takers?” Shiro asks, and no one raises their hand, because no one wants to stay after class with a freak like Keith. Shiro gives them an easy smile and a shrug, but Keith thinks he might be disappointed, maybe.

 

Their teacher takes over for the last fifteen minutes of class, and Shiro waits in the corner, hands behind his back, standing at attention but still looking totally at ease with himself in a way Keith can’t imagine ever feeling. When the bell finally rings, he waits until the room empties out before he gets up from his desk and slings his backpack over his shoulder, makes his way slowly to Shiro like a scared cat.

 

“So,” Shiro says, leaning against the edge of a desk, “what interests you about the Galaxy Garrison, Keith?”

 

He says Keith’s name like he matters.

 

“I like space,” Keith says, and then feels stupid. “I—I mean—”

 

“No, that’s a good start,” Shiro says with a chuckle. “Do you like math? You could try for the astrophysics program, or—”

 

“You’re a pilot, right?”Keith interrupts.

 

“I am,” Shiro says.

 

“Are you gonna go to space?”

 

“Someday, yeah. I hope so.”

 

“That’s what I want to do,” Keith says decisively.

 

“Well,” Shiro says, eyes sparkling, “I think we can work with that.”

 

—

 

It doesn’t happen right away, the Garrison, but what does happen is that Shiro takes Keith out for lunch that weekend. He gets clearance from the group home, who couldn’t care less what Keith does as long as he’s not getting into trouble, and then he leads Keith to his car, a rusting contraption that looks about thirty years old. Keith just stares at it for a moment, shakes his head, and waves at Shiro to follow him around the side of the home to the back.

 

He snuck out, last year, and went to his old house, took the bike out and brought it here, hid it under a tarp in a little shed no one seems to use. He knows they know he has it, but no one has said anything so far. It’s shiny and red, the recent polish sparkling in the afternoon sunlight, and Keith warms with pride when Shiro whistles.

 

“This is yours?”

 

“It was my dad’s,” Keith says, and Shiro’s eyes soften.

 

“You legal to drive it?”

 

“Yeah,” Keith says. He sort of is. He only has a learner’s permit, and he’s supposed to have a licensed driver with him, but he’s taken it out a hundred times on his own. If he rides with Shiro, it’d be the first time he’s ever done it legally.

 

“Take me for a spin then,” Shiro says, and Keith grins.

 

Keith swings a leg over the bike and Shiro climbs on behind him, arms wrapped around Keith’s waist. Keith takes it easy, pulling out of the shed slower than usual, just so Shiro doesn’t think he’s going to get them killed and ask to stop.

 

Shiro directs him to a little diner advertising sausage gravy and biscuits on an old-fashioned letterboard sign. It’s the first time Keith has had food away from the group home in—years, probably, as long as he can remember, and Shiro asks him all kinds of questions. About his favorite classes in school, what he does in his spare time, if he’s ever been out of the state, where he usually takes the bike out.

 

“Just around the group home,” Keith says with a shrug. “I’m not… really supposed to drive by myself, so I stay within about a mile usually.”

 

The one rule Keith even sort of follows, because if his own stupidity got his dad’s bike taken away, he’d never forgive himself.

 

“I think it’d be really fun to take out in the desert,” Shiro says conversationally.

 

Keith watches him warily. “You think?”

 

“I’m up for it if you are.”

 

“Sure,” Keith says. “Yeah. Okay.”

 

They finish their food and head back to the hover bike, and Keith strokes the instrument cluster, adrenaline already pumping through his veins. He’s never gotten to drive it like he really wants to, fast and a little dangerous, pushing its limits, sharp turns and steep drops.

 

They leave the parking lot and turn onto the paved road, which continues for a mile or so before Keith can branch off into the desert. As soon as there’s sand under them, Keith squeezes the handles and guns the power and _flies_.

 

Shiro gives a happy shout as they shoot forward, and Keith grins and pushes it faster, the wind sharp and hot on his neck where it’s not covered by his jacket. He spins the bike in circles and figure eights, weaves around cliffs and between rock faces, tears the desert up for hours until the sun starts to set and he’s sore from being in the same position for so long.

 

He takes them back to town at a leisurely pace, and when they park outside Keith’s group home, tall and dark and foreboding, Shiro ruffles his hair and says, “You’ve _got_ to sign up for the pilot program at the Garrison. If you can fly the sim anything like how you drove the bike, you’ll be a star pilot.”

 

Keith looks down and tugs at the sleeves of his jacket, hiding a smile. “You think?”

 

“I really do.” Shiro reaches a hand out to ruffle his hair. “And not to brag, but I have the best sim scores at the Garrison, so I can teach you a thing or two.”

 

“Cool,” Keith says, excitement already bubbling up in him. He should let himself believe this is actually happening—it’s a long shot he’ll even get in—but it’s hard when Shiro seems so confident, when Shiro’s big hand is warm on top of his head.

 

Brotherly, his mind supplies. It’s a brotherly gesture, hair ruffling, and the way they’ve been palling around today. But he squashes the thought at once, because no one ever sticks around long enough to be friends, let alone family, and Shiro won’t either.

 

—

 

Somehow, Keith gets into the Garrison. Somehow, Shiro is still around.

 

Keith moves out of the group home and into a dorm at the Garrison, bunking with just one other cadet in a cramped little room, but it’s more space to himself than he’s had in seven years. He dons an ugly orange uniform every morning and goes to classes that are a thousand times more interesting than the ones at his school. He hangs out with Shiro at lunch and after classes. He takes his first run in the simulator and beats Shiro’s high score.

 

The last two are what gets him into fights.

 

Keith would be happy to keep his head down if everybody else would too. But he hangs out with Shiro and he has the best sim scores and people think those two things have something to do with each other, and that’s not Keith’s fault.

 

Keith is sixteen and sitting outside an office next to a kid with a bruise on his face from Keith’s knuckles, which throb painfully. Through the thin glass he hears Professor Montgomery say _the kid is only here because you vouched for him_ , hears Shiro say he’ll _handle it_ like Keith is a malfunctioning appliance.

 

But when Shiro exits the office, he smiles at Keith and says, “Hey,” in that soft way of he has, and Keith wants to believe it doesn’t mean Shiro is finally done with him, but he can’t.

 

Instead he curls in on himself again and says, “Look, I know I messed up. You should just send me back to the home already. This place isn’t for me.”

 

And then Shiro says the most incredible, unbelievable thing: “Keith, you can do this. I will never give up on you. But more importantly, you can’t give up on yourself.”

 

Keith stares at him, speechless.

 

Shiro drops into the chair next to him and lays a hand on his shoulder. “It’s not fair to you that no one thinks you’re here on your own merit. Maybe that’s my fault. But you can’t throw punches every time this happens, Keith.”

 

“I can try,” Keith mutters, and Shiro laughs.

 

“Come on,” Shiro says, standing. “Let’s get lunch and go over your geometry homework.”

 

“Okay,” Keith says, and thinks _family_ , and he’s a little less afraid of it this time.

 

—

 

Years pass, and every day Shiro stays by his side makes it easier to believe he won’t leave, easier to think the word _family_ and not want to run away himself. Shiro is his family, and there’s comfort in that, but also confusion.

 

Because he looks at Shiro and his heart flutters, and he doesn’t have the context to know what that means. He doesn’t have siblings to know if this is what brothers feel, or parents to know what being in love looks like. He doesn’t even have other friends to compare to.

 

Brother is the easiest, in the end. Brother is uncomplicated.

 

Until Shiro gets the Kerberos mission, and the word “brother” starts to feel like a lie he told himself. Until Shiro’s about to leave for more than a year and he wants so much more than a hug goodbye, but he can’t ask for it, can’t ask for something Shiro would never, ever give. Keith is eighteen now, technically an adult, but Shiro is twenty-four and accomplished and loved by everyone.

 

Keith is just Keith, and he’s staying on Earth while Shiro reaches for the stars.

 

Shiro’s hand rests on Keith’s shoulder as they look up at the ship that will take Shiro and the Holts to Pluto, farther than anyone has ever traveled in space. “You’re gonna be okay,” Shiro says with confidence Keith doesn’t share. “You’re gonna be great, Keith. You don’t need me here for that.”

 

Keith swallows, says nothing.

 

“I’ve known that for a long time, but now you get to prove it to everyone else, and yourself. This is a good opportunity for both of us, even if it doesn’t feel like it right now.”

 

“Shiro,” Keith says quietly. “It’s okay. You don’t have to… I’m happy. This is a huge deal for you.”

 

“I’m not trying to comfort you,” Shiro says, and Keith looks up at him, brow furrowed. “I’m trying to talk myself into not feeling miserable about being away from you for a year. I’m gonna miss you a lot, you know.”

 

Keith’s voice catches in his throat. Now is the last chance he’ll have for a year, but—”Me too. But you’re—we’re brothers. We’ll be okay.”

 

“Yeah. Brothers.” Shiro pulls Keith into a hug, and Keith leans into his broad chest, breathes in deep, because it’s the last time he’ll get to for so long and it’s absolutely necessary that he remembers every detail of the way Shiro smells.

 

Shiro’s fingers run through his hair. “When I get back...”

 

“What?”

 

A long silence, then: “Nothing. Just—make sure you break all my sim records, okay?”

 

“There are only, like, two left,” Keith says. “Shouldn’t be that hard.”

 

Shiro laughs and cuffs him on the head and says, “Brat,” and Keith thinks, _brothers_ , and it doesn’t feel wrong, but it’s not quite right either.

 

—

 

Shiro dies.

 

Shiro dies and the Garrison says it was his fault and if Keith was full of rage before, now he’s overflowing with it, boiling over the edges of himself, a volcano erupting continuously. He starts getting into fights again, blows off his classes, screws up in the sim, and punches Iverson in the eye so hard he does permanent damage.

 

He doesn’t regret it. And he doesn’t regret getting kicked out of the place blaming Shiro for his own death when Shiro was the best pilot they’ve ever had, the best leader Keith will ever know, the person who found Keith in an orphanage going nowhere and gave his life a purpose, a way to touch the stars.

 

A purpose that died with Shiro.

 

Shiro will be floating up in space for the rest of eternity and Keith will be here on Earth, and he wishes when he dies he might float up into space too and find Shiro again, but Pluto is so far away. The matter that makes up Keith and the matter that makes up Shiro will never touch again.

 

Keith wants so badly to be touched by Shiro again.

 

 _Brothers_ , he thinks, with doubt.

 

—

 

Keith has been alone in the desert for months, searching and waiting for something he doesn’t understand, when Shiro crashes back to Earth, scarred and ripped apart but alive. Gloriously alive and _here_ , and Keith touches his face and doesn’t want to let go, and _it’s good to have you back_ , but those words are so thin when his whole body is _thrumming_ with the need to touch and hold and keep safe.

 

They find the lions. They fly through space and find the castle and meet Allura and Coran, and just like the first time they met, Shiro has crash landed into his life and brought with him a reason for Keith to exist, a mission, a universe to save.

 

Another one, that is. Shiro is a universe already, and Keith isn’t sure which he’d privilege over the other. He tells Pidge _everyone in the universe has a family_ , except for him, only Shiro, solid and alive and next  to him and he has to protect him and if Pidge leaves that’s one less person around to stop the other universe from destroying Keith’s.

 

He dives in front of an armed robot when Shiro freezes up. He watches Shiro whenever he can, follows him around rooms with his eyes, checks up on him regularly. Shiro fights Zarkon and Keith rushes in to help without a thought toward his own mortality because that’s what he does, for Shiro.

 

Shiro says _if I don’t make it out of here, I want you to lead Voltron_ , and the idea of losing him again is too much to bear, something he can’t possibly live through a second time, _brothers_ , and they meet the Blade of Marmora and Keith says _you’re like a brother to me_ , because it’s what he is to Shiro, he knows, and he needs Shiro to know that what he feels is big and close and raw and _family_.

 

And Shiro dies. Again.

 

—

 

In the Black Lion, he feels Shiro.

 

It makes it easier, and harder. He doesn’t want to pilot Black because Shiro is the Black Paladin and he’s not gone, he’s _not_ , he’s somewhere and the lion is still his, and Keith is going to give her back to him. But he feels Shiro in her, smells him everywhere, hears the whisper of his voice, and he lets himself be wrapped up in it. He’s going to find Shiro, but until then he has this.

 

_Brothers._

 

Pidge is angry too, he reasons. Pidge wants her father and brother back more than anything, and she’s angry like Keith is, reckless like he is, when it comes to them, when it comes to Shiro for him. Missing Shiro and wanting Shiro the way he doesn’t have to mean—anything. Anything but what he’s always said. Shiro is his brother. Shiro thinks—thought— _thinks_ of Keith as a brother and Keith thinks of Shiro the same way and it’s not complicated. It’s not.

 

He tells himself this over and over as he falls asleep at night grasping his knife and remembering Shiro’s arms around him after the trial, the way it eased the full-body ache of hours and days of fighting just to feel Shiro’s warmth.

 

Shiro’s reassurance that he doesn't think of Keith any differently knowing he's Galra.

 

The hug before he and Hunk left for the Weblum that made Keith feel centered and right and _himself_ for the first time since the trial.

 

He fights tooth and nail against leadership but finds himself in the thick of it anyway, throws himself into the search for Lotor, tries to keep them all alive and succeeds, barely.

 

He looks for Shiro. Again, he finds him.

 

—

 

Is it brotherly, he thinks, the way his heart pounds when Shiro asks him how many times Keith will save him? Is it brotherly to hold themselves at a distance, afraid to touch like they've never been before, something unidentifiable and unbreachable between them?

 

Shiro won’t take Black back and Keith doesn’t know why. Shiro won’t _talk_ to him anymore, not like they used to, shuts him down where he used to always, always listen, just tells him over and over again that he’s the leader now and _the Black Lion has chosen you, Keith_ , but Keith didn’t choose Black and this Shiro can’t understand that and the old Shiro would’ve because the old Shiro understood _Keith_ , knew his mind like no one else did, and now…

 

Keith leaves Voltron and joins the Blade full-time for Shiro, and for himself, and for the others, for the universe. Shiro is better than him in every way, a stronger leader, a better man, and he’s afraid but yearning and Keith sees it. And so he leaves the man he—his brother, his only family, for a new and odder and foreign one. And Shiro lets him go.

 

Shiro gives up.

 

—

 

He almost dies.

 

It’s nothing new, really. Keith has almost died a hundred times on missions, but this is the first time it’s on purpose.

 

It was an easy decision to make, once he realized, _not with our weapons_ , and if not for Lotor, he would’ve been vaporized by the shield around Haggar’s ship when he crashed into it, and he wouldn’t have cared, because the universe would’ve been safe, for the moment. Shiro would’ve been safe.

 

After, he sees Pidge and Matt together and it’s nothing like he and Shiro ever were and he thinks _brother_ and the word crumbles until it’s meaningless.

 

—

 

He almost dies for Shiro, again and again and again, and he doesn’t know if that’s normal and he doesn’t care. He sabotages the Blade’s mission and he doesn’t _care_ because Shiro would die and nothing else matters, even after months apart, after Shiro’s cold distance, after Shiro gave up.

 

Kolivan says _don’t let your emotions get in the way_ and _you have before_ and it’s Shiro, Kolivan doesn’t say it but it’s always Shiro who compromises Keith, and that’s how it will stay.

 

—

 

Meeting his mother changes things.

 

He learns that she didn’t leave because she didn’t want him, and a weight lifts off him that has sat on his shoulders for nineteen years. He learns how she and his father met, and that they loved each other fiercely, and that nothing mattered more to her than protecting them.

 

Keith knows what that’s like.

 

He knows a lot of things now, like how it feels to look like someone. He didn’t look like his dad and he wondered, always wondered if he looked like his mom instead, even when he found out he was Galra, and here she is—tall and lavender-skinned but she has his _face_.

 

They’re learning each other but it feels so normal to be with her. It feels normal to let her look after him, shield him from things, fuss over the length of his hair and choppily shear the ends. He finds a wolf pup and teaches it to fetch and they have a little home on the back of a space whale with a mom and a son and a dog and it’s normal. As normal as things get, anymore.

 

Two years, and he talks mostly about Shiro—the others, too, but Shiro has been the center of his orbit since he was fifteen, and he can’t seem to stop. He tells her how he met Shiro and how Shiro pulled every string he could to get Keith into the Garrison, how Keith broke all the rules but Shiro never once let it affect their friendship. How Keith got booted from the Garrison because he couldn’t stand the idea of them blaming Shiro for the crash.

 

“He means a lot to you,” Krolia says.

 

“Yeah,” Keith says. “He does.”

 

“You miss him.”

 

“Yeah.” And it’s not just that Keith misses Shiro here, galaxies away and floating through a rift that stretches time out like silly putty. He misses the Shiro before Kerberos and he misses the Shiro before he disappeared again. He misses a Shiro who cried at the launch because it meant leaving Keith for so long.

 

Now he has a Shiro who lets Keith go without a second thought.

 

“I can’t wait to meet him,” Krolia says. “I’m glad you had someone to take care of you. After… your father passed.”

 

It makes something twist unpleasantly in Keith, the implication that Shiro was some kind of father figure, just six years older than Keith, twenty-one when they met and, Keith knows now, still figuring himself out. “No, he—I mean, he… he just. He didn’t take care of me, really. He was more like… a mentor.” He swallows. “Or like a brother.”

 

But he knows now, doesn’t he? He has a mother and he’s spent every day with her for two years and he knows, now, what that particular love feels like, that closeness.

 

This isn’t what he feels for Shiro.

 

—

 

He’s measured the years in the inches he grows and the muscle he gains, and when they finally finish their mission, find Romelle and learn what Lotor’s done, Keith estimates he’s around twenty-one. He should, a childish part of him thinks, be taller than Lance now, and that will make Lance _so mad_.

 

They fly the Altean space pod back to the castleship and Keith steps off, relief overwhelming him at the sight of them—Coran and Hunk and Pidge and even Lance and _Shiro_ , wide-eyed and stammering Keith’s name.

 

Romelle tells her story and the whole time Shiro is just _looking_ at him, at his sharpened collarbones and broader shoulders and height. He comes up to Shiro’s nose now, just about. Shiro is bothered by it, maybe. Because Keith is like a little brother to him and in the space of a couple of months he’s aged years and it’s hard for him. Or maybe it’s something else.

 

Maybe.

 

—

 

He saw flashes in the quantum void of past and future, and so much of it was Shiro, and so he isn’t surprised when Allura announces that _Shiro’s gone mad_ and they have to stop him before he leaves with Lotor.

 

Keith knows how this plays out and he goes anyway, he fights, he hurls himself through a wormhole to the other end of the universe because if there’s a chance, however slim, that he can save Shiro, he’s going to try. He will always try, _as many times as it takes_ , and if he dies then at least he dies with Shiro.

 

He walks miles on foot and he’s bone-deep weary by the time he boards the elevator, and the dark is lit by the violet glow of a hundred Shiros—whole Shiros, before Kerberos Shiros, and did Keith say he missed that Shiro? All he wants now is to find _his_ Shiro and pull him back from wherever he’s gone—and then he’s here, and Keith pleads with him, and here it is, the echo of _you’re not going anywhere_ , and Keith readies himself.

 

Shiro says the things to him Keith has heard him say a thousand times now, for years and years in the darkest part of his imagination and in the void, eyes sharp and mouth twisted in a cruel grin that doesn’t suit his kind, handsome face.

 

Shiro says _I should’ve abandoned you just like your parents_ , but that’s not right, is it, because Krolia didn’t abandon him, not really, she was protecting him, and sometimes you have to do things that hurt to protect the people you love, and Shiro says _they knew that you were broken, worthless,_ and Keith might have believed it two years ago— _did_ believe it—but not anymore.

 

Shiro attacks and attacks and Keith defends and defends because he can’t hurt Shiro, he _won’t_. Shiro cuts the base apart, sending his own clones falling into space, and Keith falls with them, barely managing to grasp the edge of a platform and haul himself up onto it.

 

Shiro drops onto the platform in front of him with a heavy thud, and fear wars with the instinctual joy he always feels at Shiro’s presence. Shiro raises the blade of his arm and Keith blocks with his knife and he begs, again, and he says “You’re my brother.”

 

Because he is. His brother in arms, his best friend, the person Keith would trust with his life over anyone in the universe, but—

 

Keith says, “I love you,” and Shiro’s eyes go wide.

 

Because he does, in a thousand ways, as a brother, as a lover, as _family._

 

Shiro tells Keith he doesn’t have to fight anymore. That the team are dead—his mother is dead. It doesn’t matter. It does, but it doesn’t, because Keith will never stop fighting if he has Shiro to fight for.

 

A burst of strength rushes through him and he pushes Shiro off, slices through metal and wires and Shiro’s Galra arm falls to the floor, and Shiro drops to his knees, and when he looks at Keith and whispers his name in this confused, afraid way Keith wants to rush to him and hold him but—

 

But then they're tumbling over the edge and Keith has Shiro by the tenuous grip of his fingers and his knife in holding them up and he promised he won't leave here without Shiro and he won't, and he lifts Shiro up but they slide down and then the base breaks apart and they're falling, falling.

 

—

 

Keith wakes in the astral to the sound of his name in Shiro’s voice.

 

It's the real Shiro this time, he can tell, and when he says _I died, Keith,_ it's gentle, because this is the real Shiro and he knows the way those words will crush Keith if he's anything but careful. He says the others are okay, and he tells Keith what he needs to do, and it feels like an eternity since Keith has been able to wrap himself in the security of Shiro’s words like this.

 

He wakes again, this time in the Black Lion, the clone Shiro lying unconscious behind him, face soft in sleep.

 

There must be something they can do, some way to retrieve the real Shiro, but he can't think about that now—he has to get to the others.

 

—

 

They defeat Lotor. They destroy the Castle of Lions to save their universe and all the rest. Now the only one left is Keith’s.

 

Allura pulls Shiro's essence from the Black Lion and transfers it into the clone body, and Shiro wakes and coughs and collapses onto Keith and looks at him and says, _you found me,_  and Keith thinks, _I'll always find you_.

 

—

 

On Earth, in a small guest bedroom in the Holts’ house, Keith combs his fingers through Shiro’s snowy hair and watches the rise and fall of his chest as he sleeps. He can’t stop thinking—about Shiro’s face when Keith said he loved him, and the way Shiro looked at him, and the _when I get back_ before Kerberos, and maybe he’s had it wrong this whole time. Maybe...

 

Shiro slept the entire way back to the Milky Way, to home, and when they touched down Keith and Krolia had to carry him into the Holts’ house and up the stairs. Keith would be worried, but Coran says his vitals are fine and just needs to sleep off the trauma of getting a body back—a body that isn't even truly his own—after months in the consciousness of the Black Lion.

 

Still, Keith won't leave his bedside. He needs to see Shiro awake, and he needs Shiro not to wake up alone.

 

When night falls, the stars twinkling in the desert sky and casting shadows that dance across Shiro’s face, his eyes open.

 

“Shiro,” Keith whispers. “Hey. How do you feel?”

 

Shiro sits up, looking around wildly, face alert and guarded. “Where are we?”

 

“Earth,” Keith says. He curls his fingers around Shiro’s hand. “Pidge and Matt’s house. You're safe, Shiro.”

 

Shiro lets out a breath. “We're home?”

 

“We're home,” Keith says. He points at the window. “See for yourself.”

 

Shiro slides out of bed on shaking legs and pulls Keith along to the window. His eyes shine with starlight and excitement, recognition. “Canis Major,” he breathes, tracing the constellation in the air.

 

“Gemini,” Keith adds, smiling as he points to it.

 

“Orion.”

 

“Perseus.”

 

“It's winter then,” Shiro says. “Do you think Christmas has passed yet?”

 

“Commander Holt says it's November. The tree's not even up yet. Maybe they'll let us help decorate it.”

 

Shiro looks at him and his smile is so soft and his eyes are sparkling and he says, “I love you too.”

 

Keith swallows. “You remember?”

 

“I have his brain,” Shiro says and wrinkles his nose. “I remember everything. And… there are some things I wish I could forget, but I'd rather keep every horrible memory if it means I get to remember what you said.”

 

And Keith may not be totally sure Shiro loves him the way Keith loves Shiro, but finally—finally, after six years, he realizes that even if Shiro doesn't, he won't leave. Shiro will _never_ give up on him.

 

Keith leans up onto his toes and presses his mouth to Shiro’s.

 

Shiro is still for the space of a breath, but then he wraps his arm around Keith’s waist and pulls him close so they're chest to chest, and Keith's fingers tangle in the fluff of Shiro’s bangs and grasp at his shoulder. They kiss and kiss in the light of the stars and when they finally pull apart, still wrapped in each other's arms, there's no regret or doubt in Shiro’s face.

 

“That's what I meant,” Keith says. “When I said it.”

 

“Me too,” Shiro says and kisses him again, and Keith is flying. Then: “Your brother, huh?”

 

Keith narrows his eyes. “Look, I just thought that was what you—”

 

“I thought it was what _you_ ,” Shiro says, teasing. “You kept saying it.”

 

“I didn't know how else to… it mattered to me, that you knew how much… but I thought there was no way, Shiro. I was some badly behaved kid you put up with and you were…”

 

“You were beautiful,” Shiro says earnestly. “And talented, and smart, and headstrong. And you just kept amazing me again and again. I could see you, when you piloted Black, and… my whole existence in the astral plane was just waiting until you would fly her again so I could reach out to you, or at least just… feel you.”

 

“I felt you,” Keith said softly. “Part of me knew you were with me, I think. But I missed you so much I convinced myself I was imagining it.”

 

Shiro buries his nose in Keith’s hair and breathes in, hugging him tight. “I love you,” Shiro says again.  “I’ve wanted to tell you every day since the launch. I should’ve.”

 

If he had, Keith doesn't know what he would've done, because he was alone before Shiro and he didn’t understand, and he was still playing with the word _brother_ then, and the desperation for something stable enough to keep Shiro with him, to keep Shiro _his_.

 

Now he takes a flame to the word, lets it turn to ash and float up into the night sky as he and Shiro kiss.

**Author's Note:**

> hey y'all come talk about how shiro and keith aren't brothers and are in love with each other [on tumblr](http://koshiroganes.tumblr.com)
> 
> title comes from [georges michel sarotte's book](https://www.amazon.com/Like-brother-like-lover-homosexuality/dp/0385127650) because this phenomenon is incredibly common in the lgbt community!


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